Feelin' Way Too Damn Good
by ehee
Summary: Weekly One-Shot Challenge #3. Sookie and Amelia take a little trip...


A/N - This story is for the **Weekly One-Shot Challenge Week #3 -- "I've had about as much vacation as I can stand."** Once again, it is inspired by a song of the same name (by Nickelback...again! Do I detect a pattern here?) The last four lines of the story are from the song. I'm posting this without my beta's help (sorry, Joy!) so please excuse any errors. Enjoy!

Disclaimer -- The characters in this story are the property of Charlaine Harris, I'm poor so don't sue.

**FEELIN' WAY TOO DAMN GOOD**

I knew it was a bad idea from the beginning. I knew it, but I went along with it anyway. Amelia could just about talk me into anything.

Two weeks ago, she had come up with the hair-brained idea that we (meaning she and I) needed a vacation. _"Just to get away for a few days,"_ she had said. I had scoffed and looked at her like she had grown a second head. She may have had the desire and the means to just take off on a whim, but I had neither. There was no way I could ask Sam for a week off, even if I could have afforded it.

But for every argument I had, Amelia had an answer. "Don't worry about it," she had countered. "I've got it all under control."

Amelia's having it "all under control" consisted of going behind my back to arrange for my time off with Sam. He had said it was the least he could do after leaving me to run the bar for a week while he looked after his mother. (Sam's mother, also a shifter, had been shot by her husband on the night of the Weres' Great Reveal. Sam had gone to Texas to be with her while she recovered.) Under control also meant Amelia was paying for everything. She knew how I felt about intervention with my personal affairs, but she did it anyway. Amelia was pretty headstrong like that.

So, two weeks later, there we were, at the hugely pink, hugely opulent Atlantis Resort on Paradise Island in the Bahamas. I tried to play down the ostentatiousness of our accommodations -- it wasn't like we were staying in the Royal Towers or anything that posh. We had a very comfortable room in the Beach Tower that had two double beds and one huge window/door that opened onto a small balcony overlooking the beach.

It should have been paradise for a sun worshipper like me, but I just somehow couldn't get my head and heart into the game. As much as I appreciated Amelia's generosity, getting away from Bon Temps wasn't something I was interested in right now.

It was only a little more than a month ago that Eric and I had come to our "understanding." We were both learning how to deal with our feelings for each other and how they affected our blood bond. Even though we had known each other for a couple of years, it was the start of a new relationship for us and I didn't want to take a break from it. Not yet, anyway.

Amelia did her best to show me a good time. She made sure we took in all of the sights at the resort. During the day we sunned on the beach, swam in the ocean, played with the dolphins at Dolphin Cay, and floated down the Lazy River ride. At night we sampled the wares offered by the resort's many restaurants, gambled in the casino (I even won two-hundred dollars, which really sent me over the moon), and just wandered around the one-hundred-forty-plus acres of pure tropical bliss.

I tried really hard to have fun, but Amelia could tell my heart just wasn't in it. It was a long way from Nassau to Shreveport, but I could still feel the faint humming of the bond in the back of my brain, and that only added to my sense of emptiness. Amelia didn't seem to be offended, though, just determined to make sure I enjoyed my vacation.

It was our third night on the island and we were in our room, getting dressed to have an early dinner at the Mesa Grill. At Amelia's insistence, I was wearing a curve-hugging, soft-and-shimmering, deep red halter dress with matching screw-me sandals. Her argument had been "this is a nice restaurant and you need to dress for it." _OK, whatever._

I put the finishing touches on my hair and makeup and walked out of the bathroom just in time to hear Amelia whisper "...OK, gotta go now" into her cell phone as she snapped it shut.

I shot her a questioning glance from under my arched eyebrow. "What was that all about?" I queried.

She answered with an angelically innocent smile. "Just telling Cope what a wonderful time we're having, and thanking him for the trip."

Questions turned to irritation and I gave Amelia a dark look. "Thanking Cope for the trip?" I was mortified at the thought of Amelia's father paying for our vacation, even if he was loaded to the gills. "Amelia, I thought this was all your idea. I wouldn't have come at all if I had known..."

"Of course you wouldn't," Amelia smiled sweetly and caressed the side of my face. "But Cope just wanted to show his appreciation to you for introducing him to the New Orleans vamps. It turned out to be a profitable venture for him. And besides, we're here now, and we're going to enjoy ourselves on this damn island more than anyone ever dreamed of!"

Well, who could argue with that? Not me, at least not now. Amelia's enthusiasm was just too infectious. After one final glance in the full-length mirror, we decided we looked especially stunning and headed out the door to catch the shuttle to the restaurant.

We feasted on a scrumptious dinner of lobster and corn chowder, sixteen spice chicken with a mango-roasted garlic sauce, and cilantro pesto mashed potatoes. Bon Temps had never seen food like that, and I was pretty sure neither had Shreveport. We were way too stuffed to even think about dessert, so we decided to walk off our excesses and hoof it to the casino for some gambling.

It was a long walk from the restaurant to the casino and I knew I would never make it in heels, so I took off my shoes and walked barefoot. It was mid-February, but the ground had been warmed by the tropical sun and felt toasty on my feet. The sun was just sinking to the west behind us, but the eastern sky ahead was already turning a deep indigo.

Nightfall meant only one thing to me – Eric. When your boyfriend is a vampire, you learn to love the night and anticipate its coming. I wasn't anticipating this one, though; all it meant another night away from my Viking.

We walked, and I tried to listen as Amelia prattled on about this and that. She was really trying, God bless her. Her persistence was admirable, but my thoughts just couldn't stay with her. I nodded and _mmm-hmm'd_ as she carried on our mostly one-sided conversation. To her credit, she didn't even seem to notice my lack of participation or good manners.

When we finally reached the casino we were greeted by a rush of flashing lights, clanging bells, and raucous voices. We meandered through the throng of bodies until we found ourselves in front of a bank of slot machines. Amelia grinned at me, lowered her voice to a false basso and asked, "Do ya feel lucky, punk?"

I couldn't help but laugh. It was the worst Clint Eastwood impression I ever heard, but she achieved her objective. _Sort of._

With Amelia as my cheerleader, I was able to push my pining aside for a while. I even managed a full-out laugh when I won another hundred dollars. We bantered back and forth like a couple of schoolgirls, sauntering our way around the casino floor, just daring the one-armed bandits to try and rob us.

After taking a powder-room break around eleven o'clock, Amelia suddenly turned to me and said, "Ya know, Sook, we haven't seen that Pegasus fountain at night yet. I'll bet it's really gorgeous all lit up. Why don't we go check it out?"

"Mmm, OK," I answered. I really didn't have any desire to see winged bronze horses in the moonlight, but Amelia had been such a dear all night, I didn't have the heart to tell her no.

We made our way outside, to the entrance of the hotel. The Pegasus fountain was beautiful, just as Amelia had promised. The winged beauties did have the appearance of flight, and the nighttime lighting of the fountain turned their bronze gilding to gold.

Amelia nudged my arm playfully. "I'm sorry, but you just don't see sights like this in Renard Parish." Her voice held just a little too much enthusiasm.

"No you certainly don't," I agreed. "I really appreciate you bringing me on this trip, Amelia, I really do. It's the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me. But I think I've had about as much vacation as I can stand."

"Lighten up, Sookie," Amelia chided. "I've never known you to be such a stick in the mud. I'll bet if you tried really hard, you could have the time of your life by tomorrow morning."

The sudden wickedness in Amelia's voice caught my attention, and I gave her a sideways look to see what she was up to. She was wearing the shit-eating grin to break all records and pointing furiously to two figures approaching from the other side of the fountain.

It took me all of two seconds to realize who one of the figures was. Six-foot-four Viking gods aren't an every day occurrence. It took another two seconds for me to close the distance between us. _"Eric!"_ I screamed as I jumped into his waiting arms.

I squeezed my eyes tight to stanch the impending flow of tears, but it didn't work. They fell down my face like rivers. "Dear one, I fear you have once again single-handedly taken my dry cleaning bill to a new world record," he teased softly.

"Oh, Eric, I'm so sorry," I apologized. I pulled my head away from his cool, firm chest to see that I had turned the front of his shirt into a total train wreck. Black silk..._oh shit._

Eric took my face in his hands and softly kissed my lips. "Do not worry, lover. I brought extras." He winked and gave me another hug to reassure me.

I turned around to Amelia and saw her locked in a heady embrace with Tray Dawson. "Looks like I wasn't the only one who was lonely for...um...companionship, Amelia," I observed teasingly.

"Well, I couldn't let you have all the fun! Besides, who wants to be a third wheel?" She grinned and gave me a thumbs-up.

I looked back at Eric. "When did you and Tray decide to follow us here? Why didn't I feel you coming?"

Eric chuckled as he put his arm around me. "That is because I dampered the bond from my end, so it would be a surprise. Amelia called the day you arrived here. She said you were moping about the trip even before you left home, and that you were positively heart sickening on the flight down. She said, and I quote, "if I did not get my raggedy undead ass down here _toute de suite_ that she would stake me on the spot the second you both got home." We all laughed at his impromptu imitation of Amelia. "And, she further added that if I did not bring Tray with me, she would use the dullest stake she could find."

I looked over at Amelia, who was positively beaming in Tray's arms. I could tell she wasn't the only one who had left something behind in Bon Temps. "Amelia, I don't know how to thank you...again! You really outdid yourself this time."

"Just have a good rest of your vacation, Sook. All I wanted was for us to have fun." She blew me a kiss as she and Tray walked away toward the Beach Tower.

When Eric and I were finally alone, he turned me into his arms and kissed me for real. It was a slow, burning promise of what lay in store for us later that night. "Are there other tourist activities in which you wish to partake before we retire to our room for the evening, my lover?" he asked in his sultry, bedroom voice.

"Not a chance," I whispered breathlessly. "I missed you too much."

Then it hit me. "_Our_ room?"

"Yes, _our_ room," Eric smiled. "We have a suite in the Moonwind Towers. It is a new addition to the complex, catering exclusively to vampires."

"Oh," I blurted. It hadn't occurred to me that vampires might want to vacation at the beach.

"Let us check out the accommodations, and we can make sure your bags have been secured there."

I gulped. "You already had my stuff moved?"

Eric laughed. "That was Amelia's handiwork. She said she would make the necessary arrangements while under the pretense of excusing herself to the restroom while you were dining. I merely gave her the suite number."

Feeling brazen and extremely short on love for the past few days, I took Eric's hand and pulled him away from the fountain. "Well, let's go find that room." I slipped my arm around his waist as we walked. "And as for having time for tourist activities..." I reached down to grab a handful of his award-winning butt, "...you'll just have to wait for the movie."

_I missed you so much that I begged you to fly here and see me  
__You must've broke down 'cause you finally said that you would  
__But now that you're here I just feel like I'm constantly dreaming  
__Well something's gotta be wrong 'cause I'm feeling way too damn good_


End file.
